


Three for a Girl

by countessofbiscuit



Series: Let Me Count The Ways [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Coruscant Guard, Dialogue, F/M, Forced Sterilization, GAR - Freeform, Infertility, Maternal Mortality, Pregnancy Themes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 00:27:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29073279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessofbiscuit/pseuds/countessofbiscuit
Summary: Clones can’t reproduce: the techs had always asserted it and Fox never had any reason to doubt it. As the chosen heel of military justice, he’d considered it a convenient feature, if he thought of it at all.But then, the way Riyo talks ... the way she coos at babies, the sidelong looks she gives her hand-me-down teething ring ... Fox starts to think it might be a bug.And maybe, justmaybe, the longnecks had been wrong about that, too?
Relationships: Riyo Chuchi/CC-1010 | Fox
Series: Let Me Count The Ways [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866736
Comments: 5
Kudos: 46





	Three for a Girl

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fill for Banned Together Bingo: Patriarchy

It was a balmy Corrie evening. One of those WeatherNet engineered to give the semblance of summer and boost the sale of booze as a festival week petered out. 

On the penthouse balcony, Fox sipped his drink, this one a few fingers taller than the last. Nothing he’d paid for. Everything on the bar here had been gifted or confiscated. Some of it had probably been tactically acquired, too, but he didn’t ask questions in the Den. Five-finger discounts were only a problem when someone got caught and made it _his_ problem; and no one stupid enough to get caught had an invitation up here. 

Fox stared at the trail of speederlights winding towards the Federal District. At its southwest corner stood the Pantoran Embassy. Where his Riyo was. Was she enjoying herself at the Chairman’s birthday party, her blue skin hugged by the temperate twilight? What was she drinking? Fox imagined her in her bubbles, dancing with someone who wasn’t him. 

He didn’t have to guess what she was wearing; he’d seen her in her office, where she’d hurriedly changed into an insubstantial number: a bejewelled plackart above gauzy pants that left little to the imagination. Adjust your specs, blink twice, and you’d get a clear view of almost everything underneath. Riyo had said it wasn’t so racy under ambient light. Fox almost hoped she was wrong. _Eat your heart out, Ion. I’m gonna melt those trousers right off and eat her out later._

The balcony door opened behind him. 

“Mint said you wanted to see me — ?” The _me_ slipped into a hiss as Fudge nearly said _sir._ Rank wasn’t exactly left at the door here, but it was an understood thing that the Commander _really_ preferred you dropped the grovelling, honorifics, and sniper checks. 

Fox clinked tumblers with the staff medic. “That’s right. Wanted to pick your brain on something.” 

Fudge joined him, elbows on the railing. “Shoot.” 

“A couple days ago, I tracked down a captain playing house with some dancer. Miserable level. Wouldn’t have bothered if he wasn’t a redjob. Collect your own strays and all that ... ”

Desertion was what lay behind the tinted window of an urban garrisoned force. Especially in a place like Corrie. The unseen consequence of telling everyone they can have whatever life they want, whatever credits can buy, whatever their taxpayer creds can offer ... everyone except _you,_ soldier boy. 

Fox had paused, trying to come to the point. He was certain Fudge would grok it in a mynock minute, and suddenly he wasn’t so sure he wanted a second opinion. “Anyway. There was ... there was a baby, too. And would you believe, he was the third guardsman I’ve found who swore up and down that it was his, till he was a right bluey in the face.” Fox took a long swill before Fudge’s judgement. “Now why would they do that, huh? Take responsibility like that? When the binders are on and they know I’ll probably just string ‘em up harder for increasing the population or some kark?” 

Fudge just shrugged. “Fooling themselves?”

“It’s just curious, ‘s all. In your medical opinion, can we?”

“Genetics is a fiddly business. Mutations have been known to slip through,” Fudge smirked, running a hand through his ruddy hair. They might’ve done well to swap names. Fudge had earned his because what everyone called him when he stuck hypos or fingers in their ass wasn't exactly family-friendly. “Who knows? Wish fuckers weren’t so sure of it, though. They don’t always come in for their fucking shots and then I get to see all sorts of things.”

_“Lovely.”_

Fudge offered Fox a cigarra and his lighter. _Large caliber meat-can looking for meet-cute_ had been etched into it. The medic seemed wholly unbothered that he'd only ever fire big blanks. “Do you know how they did it?” Fox asked, after a long drag over his mounting disappointment. 

“Hmm?”

“The longnecks. How they made us ... sterile.” 

Fudge shrugged again, in what began to look like a nervous tic. “Stuck a spanner somewhere in meiosis? I figure we’ve got spermatids, they’re just dead in the water. Though it also occurred to me that maybe the Prime couldn’t, and that’s why he asked for Boba.” 

“I think Jango didn’t want to get close enough to another organic to try.” 

Fudge laughed. “Maybe.” 

“Is it something you can test for?” Fox pressed. “Some strip you can whip out during a short-arm inspection?”

“Nah, I think it’s a trial and error thing. Or a DNA test. Squirting into a petri dish or some shit. That’s kaminii medicine you’re after. It’s the _why_ that interests me more.”

“IP. It’d undercut their business.”

“What, you think the Republic will put us out to stud?” Fudge scoffed. “Sure as hell wouldn’t let any kid of mine join up.”

“No,” Fox agreed. “But imagine you lose a battalion or two — easily done, say, somewhere in Mando space. Why wait to buy your muscle off the line when you can hire a clan of vets and their sprogs at a tenth of the price?” _Nice gig, if you can get it._ Fox kept that to himself — the dissidence, and that he'd ever consider rubbing shoulders with Mandalorians. He sucked in some more euphoria-laced death, to stave off his blackening mood. “Real reason? Because they _could._ We’re not meant to be self-perpetuating product. They wanted to do it neatly, cleanly, to prove they were smart enough. For the professional thrill.”

“Well, it’s fucked up and down and inside-out.” Fudge slowly stubbed his cigarra on the railing. “But speaking of _why_ ... what’s brought this on?” 

Why? Fudge was Choruk-adjacent; he must’ve had an inkling. Must've seen the big, flashing pink and blue neon sign reflected in his commander's visor. But Fox shook his head, demurring. “No reason. War’s gotta end sometime, yeah?”

Fudge nodded over his shoulder. “End a lot sooner if those boys were in the scrap.” 

“Damn straight.” It was all guardsmen back there tonight; no forward units who thought tidy hair and a few room-clearing drills were the only qualifications needed to operate on Corrie.

They both lit second smokes. Then, after a few minutes passed in companionable silence, Fudge decided he was comfortable enough to betray speculation. “If you’ll take the advice of a humble medic, she’ll understand. This war’s left a lot of orphans.”

Fox nodded, feeling a little selfish. Still feeling lesser.

“Pregnancy ain’t no picnic, either,” Fudge continued. “Don’t know much about it myself, but I was out on call once. Squad comms me, urgent. Something just ... went wrong with this civvie. Beautiful mirialan, obviously carrying, just dropped dead in the street.” He made the general gesture of flat out, oppressively horizontal. “Reed had his vibroblade out, fuckin’ terrified. So I took it from him. Got that baby out breathing. And you know what the dad said?” 

Fox inspected the bottom of his glass. Trying to find a pattern, a hair, a dead bug — anything to stop him from imagining what the dad said. To stop him seeing his beloved bleeding out into some Corrie gutter. Cut up and cold. 

He didn’t say anything. 

“He said, ‘you saved the wrong one!’ Wouldn’t even _look_ at the bloody baby I’m holding. Just ... knelt over his dead wife, fucking screaming, ‘You saved the wrong one! You saved the wrong one!’” Fudge knocked back the rest of his drink. “Put me off the whole baby-making notion for-fucking-ever, if I’m honest.” 

That would happen to someone else. Some other poor sod. Not to _his_ — ... not to her. Fox would never allow it. Moot fucking point, anyhow. “Thank you, Fudge,” he said, with an edge of cool formality. The medic took the hint. He left another cigarra on the rail and excused himself with a barely audible _sir._

Fox necked this third tumbler. He looked vacantly at the vast expanse of city. At the tendrils of lights until they merged into a formless, directionless mass, until he forgot that he was supposed to be waiting like a spring for the hour Riyo had given him. 

An idea wrapped itself around his consciousness. Fox suddenly wanted nothing more than to drop his glass over the ledge. Just because. To make his carelessness someone else’s bigger problem, down somewhere too deep for jurisdiction. Where there was no justice. Just consequences without choice. 

Eventually Thire came up behind him, stealing Fox’s fourth from over his shoulder, clapping a hand on his neck rather too chummily. “Hey, Redsocks, you wanna get there in one piece, yeah? Piers’s got a sabacc game going — why don’t you come and show us how it's done.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Art of Riyo's Birthday Party outfit.](https://countessofbiscuit.tumblr.com/post/641929766499450880)


End file.
